Local Directory

Turning lights back on

STILL WAITING: Councillor Sharon Stewart and Joe Hunn are amazed that one end of the Howick Domain football pitch remains in darkness. Times photo Wayne Martin.

WHEN Joe Hunn became fed up with training his fledgling football stars in semi-darkness, he set out on what he thought would be a straight-forward mission to get the floodlights repaired.

But the director of coaching for Bucklands Beach AFC, who trains youngsters at Howick Domain, didn’t count on a convoluted semantics trail.

In his mind, the problem and its solution were simple.

Howick Domain is divided into a rugby ground on Wellington Street and a football ground on the Moore Street side, with a cricket net on the Nelson Street corner.

The fields are surrounded by eight strategically placed floodlights.

For the past 10 years, the football club has punched in a code to switch on the lights around the entire domain. This season, the council changed the system.

To its dismay, the football club has found that when it puts in its code, only three lights come on, including two by the tennis club on Howe Street.

But the light on the Moore Street side of the football pitch is missing a bulb and both the lights at the Nelson Street edge are failing to ignite.

The players are training with two-and-a-half lights with one end of the ground in darkness.

And so starts the semantics trail:

May 2: Auckland Council contractor, Downer, says it’s been advised by its electrical subcontractor Auckland Electrical there’s no problem with the Howick Domain lights.

May 3: A Downer representative meets with Auckland Electrical and puts in the respective codes for the rugby and football clubs. After waiting 10 minutes, the lights progressively go on, except for the ones malfunctioning and for which the contractor submits quotes to the council for repair.

May 6: There’s still confusion about whether the lights need to be repaired. It’s concluded that the football club is not prepared to wait out the 10-minute delay before the lights come on, therefore assumes the lights don’t work.

The progressive start-up is to avoid an immediate draw off of power so surrounding street and house lights are not blown out.